


A Long Road

by Vathara



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 魔道祖师 | Módào Zǔshī (Cartoon)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fire, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Ghosts, Necromancy, Scheming Niè Huáisāng
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 05:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vathara/pseuds/Vathara
Summary: The diplomatic mission went fine, until the white horse yao kidnapped the necromancer's boyfriend.(The Companion would like to object to yao.(Lan Wangji objects to boyfriend.(Wei Wuxian objects to...  Fine, whatever. The locals have a word for the ghost path? Roll with it!(Queen Selenay would just like to know when the gods willstop dumping legends on her doorstep.)AKA Nie Huaisang plans to fix everything. Oops.
Relationships: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn & Wēn Níng | Wēn Qiónglín, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn & Wēn Qíng, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn & Wēn Remnants
Comments: 172
Kudos: 195





	A Long Road

**Author's Note:**

> I'm mainly going by book canon for MDZS, but some of the neat stuff and Dramatic Imagery from the animation and live-action probably snuck in as well. You've been warned.

“Riding horses is _so slow_.”

Gold eyes flicked at him, distinctly unimpressed. Guiding his chestnut mare with his knees, Nie Huaisang swept his fan in front of his face as if to ward that Lan gaze off.

Riding beside and a little behind him, like the proper bodyguard he wasn’t, Nie Zonghui snorted. Apparently the long weeks had left him fluent enough in stoic Lan to know Lan Wangji was only exasperated, not an active threat. Not that Zonghui couldn’t have drawn both sabers in a heartbeat and gone for the throat if things had changed.

Nie Huaisang huffed, squashing a thoroughly childish urge to pick at the silver threads lacing his forest-green Nie robes. There was _no reason_ his elder brother should have robbed himself of his right-hand man just to guard silly, frivolous Nie Huaisang on a mere diplomatic trip. Yes, he _was_ the clan heir, but....

Well. No buts. He was the clan heir. This was a long trip, outside the familiar lands of the sects, or even the exotic nomad-covered plains. He needed a guard _with him_. Or his brother would worry.

And the length of several kingdoms and the Dhorisha Plains was a bit far to fly, even for the strongest cultivators. Which Nie Huaisang wasn’t. Too strong with the saber meant too early a death, as it had been for every Nie cultivator for centuries. Mingjue was strong; strong enough to lead their sect when he wasn’t even thirty yet. Which meant the qi deviations weren’t going to stop. A few years, maybe a decade if the sect doctors could sit on him; Nie Mingjue was running out of time-

_Breathe. Focus. You have a plan_.

And it really was too far to fly. Especially when they were also supposed to be bringing a load of diplomatic gifts. Even if those gifts were in qiankun bags for safekeeping. Because this wasn’t just a diplomatic mission to get the facts on someone else’s army of the living dead, it was a potential trade mission. And if people in Valdemar didn’t have cultivators-

_Mages_ , Nie Huaisang reminded himself, free hand twitching toward his bow as he glanced toward an unfamiliar birdcall. He wasn’t the only one; between himself, Zonghui, and Lan Wangji they covered all points of the compass, looking for man-swallowing vines, fire-winged birds, or the flickering glows of ghosts not strong enough to manifest in daylight. The autumn woods surrounding their road were full of creatures they’d never seen before. Oddly, most of them weren’t even trying to eat anyone. _The word they use north of Dhorisha is mages_.

Anyway, without someone to make and enchant talismans, Valdemar didn’t have qiankun bags, and that meant _trade opportunity_. The Jin Sect might have come through the Sunshot Campaign with their treasury almost intact - mostly by just not showing up until battles were near-won anyway - but the Nie, Jiang, and Lan sects couldn’t afford to miss any chance to rebuild their fortunes.

Especially the Jiang. Jiang Cheng hadn’t been able to spare more than one disciple from rebuilding. And that one wasn’t even with them. Yet.

But most important for a diplomatic mission, in a kingdom where the fastest travel was a horse, flying by sword and saber might be _rude_.

Not that Lan Wangji would say any of that, as the white-clad cultivator scanned the suspiciously peaceful road leading down to the border town of Zalmon. After all, the Second Jade of Lan knew Nie Huaisang knew all that already, and the Lan Sect had rules about using unnecessary words.

So many, many rules. Wei Wuxian could quote them all, even as he broke fifty in a single night. If he were here. Which he wasn’t.

_Yet_.

Really, Lan Wangji ought to stop moping so much. Yes, it looked like glaring, out of a face that could have been carved from jade, but it was moping. Nie Huaisang had read - and written! - enough spring-books to know the difference. Honestly, he couldn’t see how everyone else missed it. Lan Wangji had accepted the order to leave his home sect for months with a perfectly stoic face, but the moment their roads had taken them riding past, and then north away from Yiling and the Burial Mounds....

Nie Huaisang was going to fix this. And so many other things. He had a _plan_.

_“It’s a terrible plan, A-Sang.”_

Nie Huaisang hid any eye-roll behind his fan, thinking back to that morning months ago in the Unclean Realms. The war-shutters had been open, letting in sunlight and the clash of sabers from disciples training in the courtyard. Seated in his office, broad shoulders wrapped in near-black robes, Sect Leader Nie Mingjue had stopped polishing Baxia a moment to gauge the saber’s shine.

Baxia shifted herself in Mingjue’s grip, pressing steel a little closer to the weave of the rag. It was a very judgmental shift.

Nie Huaisang shook open his latest fan, glimmering with a painted peacock, stung by the both of them. At least neither of them had to worry about potential eavesdroppers, even on a serious conversation between the Sect Leader and his younger brother and heir. Sound-dampening talismans were _made_ for thwarting spies. “You haven’t even heard it yet!”

“I’ve seen the Burial Mounds. Enough angry ghosts and fierce corpses walk those hills to take down an army of cultivators. _Without_ a demonic cultivator egging them on. Even Wen Ruohan didn’t mess with that accursed place. And you think you’ll get Wei Wuxian to turn his back on those damned Wens and walk right out into the clean country with the Stygian Tiger Seal?” A hissed breath. “He may be a fool, but he’s not an _idiot_. He’ll burrow in there like a tick. And we don’t have enough strong cultivators left to pierce his wards and set the Mounds on fire.”

All of which were excellent points. But they were irrelevant. “No, no.” Nie Huaisang flipped his fan back and forth, like a disdainful dove’s wing. “We make him _want_ to come out.”

Mingjue snorted, eyeing the length of Baxia’s blade again. Eyes just faintly bloodshot, lingering traces of the last qi deviation sect doctors had nursed him through. “And then we’re facing down hordes of fierce corpses outside the Burial Mounds. Not an improvement.”

Oh, this was a disaster- No. No it wasn’t, Nie Huaisang just needed to keep talking. “No, no, no. He won’t want to attack us at all!”

His elder brother straightened to his full, sometimes terrifying height. Well, terrifying to everyone else. “...How.”

Nie Huaisang brightened. Because really, his brother was going to love this plan. “Well, you know how much the Lans lost of their library-”

“Due to those damned Wens the Yiling Patriarch is protecting.”

He... really couldn’t argue with that, no. Whoever else Wei Wuxian had scooped up at a dead run out of the prison camp at Qiongqi Path, one of those Wens _was_ Wen Qing. There was no way that Wen Ruohan hadn’t used her report on the Cloud Recesses to decide what sort of destruction would hurt the Lans the most.

Not that he would have needed it. Everyone knew GusuLan treasured their library of musical cultivation above gold, or even jade. Burning it had hurt them. Even if Lan Xichen had managed to save the most critical scrolls.

_Which meant he wasn’t there when Lan Wangji fell into Wen hands for their indoctrination...._

Nie Huaisang tried not to flinch from those memories. Who knew being taken hostage, occasionally tortured, and used as bait for a century-old monster would leave worse nightmares than facing fierce corpses?

Then again, when his own sect dragged him kicking and screaming out on yet another night hunt, he had Aituan at his side. Even a half-cultivated saber made the fiercest corpse think twice.

The _point_ was, Lan Xichen had chosen saving the Cloud Recesses’ library over being there to rescue his younger brother from the Wens and the Xuanwu of Slaughter. Lan Wangji had had to rescue himself. Or Wei Wuxian had rescued him. Or they’d rescued each other. Nie Huaisang had never gotten the straight story and apparently the pair had been too bloody and feverish to tell either of their sects much of anything beyond “got the others out, killed it, The End.” And then the war had kicked off and nobody had cared to get the real story.

Nie Huaisang made a mental note to specifically _not_ bring the Xuanwu’s cave up. In a way that would remind Lan Xichen of everything, especially how much he wanted Lan Wangji away from Wei Wuxian. Hiding in the Burial Mounds would only keep the demonic cultivator alive so long as the other sects hadn’t worked up the nerve to swarm it. Once they did, and they would... Lan Xichen didn’t want his brother dying as collateral damage.

“The Lan Sect are our allies,” Nie Huaisang said steadily. “They need to rebuild their strength. Preferably with techniques Jin Guangshan has never seen before.”

Mingjue sat down again, picking up his polishing strokes. “Preferably.”

Oh good, his brother already had a suspicion where this was going. “And our contacts in the Plains say if you want to find true _Bards_ ,” such an odd word for musical cultivation, but outside the sects, who wasn’t odd? “You have to head north. To Valdemar.”

Strokes stopped. Baxia vibrated, annoyed. “Valdemar,” Mingjue said heavily. “Where they have a queen, and lords, and no sects. No righteous cultivators to stop demonic magic in its tracks. Where we heard rumors of an undead army, _before_ the Sunshot Campaign.” Under the mustache, his lips thinned. “I always wondered if Wen Ruohan got the idea there. Or if he’d been working on the puppets... earlier.”

Nie Huaisang didn’t hide his grimace. This was his brother, and everyone agreed contagious curses were the absolute _worst_. Fighting your own kin turned mad and lethal against you was more terrifying than the most murderous ghost. He still couldn’t grasp how other sect leaders seemed even more horrified by Wei Wuxian’s fierce corpses, now that the Wen were safely defeated. At least when Wei Wuxian used his resentful energy on a body that body was already _dead_. “Seven years, and I still can’t get a clear report of what happened up there. Our contacts talk to the Hawk Clan, but - well, you know.”

“Deer Clan and Grasscat,” Mingjue nodded. “They may trade with us, but only the Hawks take their clan’s horses all the way to Valdemar.”

“Still, they do talk,” Nie Huaisang agreed. “And that war brought together Valdemar, Rethwellan, and Karse as allies - when Karse had been in skirmish-wars with Valdemar for at least a _century_.” He snapped his fan closed. “But they didn’t take down Ancar. All they were able to do was drive the King of Hardorn back over his border to lick his wounds.”

“Drove back and held back a demonic cultivator who can raise an army of the dead, in a land where the dead usually _don’t_ rise on their own.” Mingjue stroked Baxia one more time, and sheathed her. “They’ll be looking for allies. People who know more about fierce corpses.”

Nie Huaisang smiled. “And who knows more about night-hunting than Hanguang-jun?”

...He really didn’t deserve that look. Really.

“You want to send Lan Wangji on a diplomatic mission to Valdemar,” Mingjue said dryly. “Lan Wangji. Who has an almost Nie-like attraction to stabbing any problem that’s stabbable. Who’d rather spend a week on the road night-hunting than an hour at a banquet. Who sits through discussion conferences looking like someone’s _torturing him to death_.” His older brother frowned, considering. “No, he looks worse. I’ve seen him tortured.” 

So had Nie Huaisang. Mingjue wasn’t wrong. “Most people get in trouble in politics by talking too much?”

“And that’s not even counting the rest of those stories we got down from Valdemar,” Mingjue rolled mercilessly on. “Which was that the Clans-tied mercenary captain who got mixed up in that war - a damn good mercenary, from all we’ve heard about the Skybolts - decided to up and move her _entire company_ into Valdemar. Where there’s no work for mercenaries. Just staring down Ancar’s army over the border. And from the intelligence we’ve gathered, she’s not the first one. Somehow, some way, Valdemar _takes_ good people. And they _don’t come back_.” He stared his brother down. “And you want Lan Xichen to risk sending his younger brother and sect heir there?”

“How many people will we _all_ lose when the sects finally stop trying to talk the Yiling Patriarch out of giving up the Seal and just raid the Burial Mounds?” Nie Huaisang countered. “Because Lan Wangji will be the tip of the sword. As always.” He took a breath. “He’s one of the strongest cultivators of our generation, and he knows his duty to the Lan Sect. Whatever odd trick of cultivation Valdemar might be using, he has the best chance of fighting it. Especially if he’s not alone, and his fellow cultivators can set up battle formations.” 

His brother scowled, which meant he knew Nie Huaisang had a point. “You still haven’t explained how sending an investigation to Valdemar has anything to do with Wei Wuxian.”

Nie Huaisang gave him a flat look. Really. Really? Hadn’t his brother paid _any_ attention to the letters full of gossip he’d sent back from the Cloud Recesses lectures? To that disastrous hunt on Phoenix Mountain, and Lan Wangji’s disarrayed ribbon? To the fact that Lan Wangji, the Second Jade of Lan, _Hanguang-jun_ , had failed to stop Wei Wuxian from breaking nearly four dozen Wens out of Jin custody? Had they even been on the same battlefields in the Sunshot Campaign?

...Well, actually, that last was a fair question. Nie Mingjue had been their general, leading them to blood and victory. Mild, frivolous Nie Huaisang had kept supplies moving, smoothed allies’ ruffled feathers, and talked wavering town and country lords out of possible small rebellions. But even so, he’d been on enough battlefields to see the Yiling Patriarch haunt the enemy like a corpse-summoning crow; Hanguang-jun before him as a blade of starlight, killing anyone that tried to stop that demonic flute.

Right now, Mingjue was just eyeing him back. “What?”

All right, maybe his brother could be that dense. Of the Twin Jades of Lan, Mingjue knew Lan Xichen best; and Lan Xichen was a wide-open, cheerful book of a man. Lan Wangji’s expressions were a hundred minute variations on stoic, and the only man who’d reliably read them was currently holed up with a stolen horde of war criminals on a mound of corpses.

He fluttered his fan, looking innocent and harmless as yet another attempt to get out of saber practice. Which had his elder brother’s eyes narrow in _A-Sang what have you done_ now.

Perfect. Now his elder brother would be thinking about it.

“You’ll figure it out.” Nie Huaisang made his gaze sober, truly serious. “Here’s the plan. We arrange for a delegation, led by Lan Wangji. With some of our disciples along, who can discreetly set anchors for teleport talismans. We give the delegation enough time to get there, plus time for a message talisman to get back. And then we send a message to the Burial Mounds that Valdemar has Lan Wangji, oh horrors, we can’t risk attacking a foreign kingdom to get him back without diplomatic repercussions from there to the Dhorisha Plains. Not to mention if they can keep _Hanguang-jun_ against his will, they can stop any righteous cultivator. We need to resort to wicked ways. We need the Yiling Patriarch.”

Baxia hummed, as Mingjue gave him a look askance. “The only way we’ll convince Xichen-ge to go along with this is if we’re sure Valdemar _can’t_ take Lan Wangji.”

“Ah, but that’s fine, that’s fine!” Nie Huaisang fluttered his fan before his face, starry-eyed. “All that matters is that Wei Wuxian _thinks_ they took him!”

The lift of his brother’s brow said he still didn’t buy it. But that distance in bloodshot eyes was the Sunshot’s best general all over again. “It won’t be enough. He’s started his own sect on that accursed mountain with those... Wens. If he has any of a Jiang’s honor left, he won’t leave them.”

Here was the trickiest part. “Of course it’s an imposition. Valdemar’s so far away. But Lan Xichen is your sworn brother, and we won’t let him lose _his_ brother if there’s anything we can do to stop it.” Deep breath. He had to keep calm, as if there were absolutely no reason to argue. “Which is why the Nie sect will guarantee the Wen Remnant’s safety in the Unclean Realm, under the laws of war.”

Baxia rattled. Nie Huaisang braced himself.

“You want to bring Wen-dogs _here?_ ”

Nie Huaisang’s knuckles tightened on his fan. _I want my friend Wei Ying back. I want the war truly over. I want you to be safe!_

“I want,” he said clearly, “to end the threat of the Yiling Patriarch and eliminate the Stygian Tiger Seal. If that means treating even Wens as honorable prisoners, I’ll do it.”

Mingjue bristled. “They could have had as much with the Jins-”

“They didn’t have that from the Jins,” Nie Huaisang cut him off. Pulse jumping, he almost never spoke over his brother, but someone had to say the truth. “Da-ge, you _know_ they didn’t. They couldn’t have. Lotus Pier burned. Wei Wuxian lost as much to the Wens as anyone! Why would he take them - why would he kill members of Jin Zixuan’s clan, his shijie’s _husband_ \- if they were being treated as prisoners of war?”

Granted, he hadn’t been Jiang Yanli’s husband _then_. Reinstating the betrothal had been part of the mess of that awful party-

_Black robes in the midst of a glittering banquet, lethal red glinting in gray eyes._

_“Where is Wen Qionglin? I will count down from_ three. _”_

Mingjue’s nostrils flared; likely also remembering that disastrous night. But he breathed, one slow meditation, putting out a hand to still Baxia in her sheath. “I know he was your friend.”

_Still is. I hope_. “He was our weapon during the war, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said plainly. “Did he ever kill those who didn’t need to be killed?” He blinked, and flicked his fan open again. “I mean, except for Wen Chao. Not that I think anyone could blame him for that. That was a proper filial revenge.”

“Even the hungry ghosts?” But some of the tension had eased out of dark-clad shoulders.

“ _Especially_ the hungry ghosts,” Nie Huaisang said fiercely. Yes, his stomach still flipped at the stories of how Wen Chao had been eaten alive. Still.... “The Wens slaughtered the Jiangs and left them where they lay, or dumped them off the pier! No cleansing ceremonies, no cremation - they would have created another Waterborne Abyss! What’s a hungry ghost next to that?”

“Easier to banish,” Mingjue admitted. Huffed. “Jin Guangyao swore the camps were well-maintained.”

“San-ge doesn’t know everything his father does.” Nie Huaisang set his shoulders, and waited.

“Or everyone.”

“Eww!” Not that his brother was _wrong_ , no, but - ugh. There were reasons female cultivators visiting Koi Tower tended to stay in groups. And most of those reasons were named Jin Guangshan. Ugh.

Mingjue breathed out; not quite a sigh. “It won’t work.”

“Da-ge-”

“Jin Guangshan wants the Seal. But his leverage is the Wens.” Mingjue met his gaze. “If they’re here, and the Yiling Patriarch fails to fall prey to whatever Valdemar used to stop the living dead, we’ll have the same problem all over again. Worse, if he does? How will we prove we _don’t_ have the Seal, with the Wens inside our walls?”

Nie Huaisang tensed, because... damn. He was right.

But it wasn’t a _no_.

Mingjue’s gaze sharpened. “Wei Wuxian’s a talisman expert.”

Nie Huaisang nodded, startled. Everyone knew that. The spirit lure flags were undeniable proof.

“How big a transport array do you think he could make?”

_Uh-oh_. “Da-ge? What are you...?”

“And one more thing. Lan Xichen won’t risk this unless his brother’s got the best chance we can give him of getting back in one piece. If this goes wrong - or _right_ \- Lan Wangji’s going to need more than just power to get him out of the mess we’re about to make. He’s going to need _diplomacy_.” Mingjue’s grin was sharp as Baxia’s edge. “Start packing.”

* * *

Here and now, Nie Huaisang breathed in the odd scents of Valdemar’s fall. He might not be the kind of mathematical genius it took to create new talismans, but he could calculate the days that had passed since they’d left, and since his very amused brother’s message talisman had announced Jiang Yanli safe delivered of Jin Zixuan’s heir, Jin Ling. Which was wonderful, joyous news; if anyone deserved a new nephew to spoil, Sect Leader Jiang Cheng did. He might even stop scowling for a minute! Not to mention if anything could convince Wei Wuxian to give up the ghost path and come back to the Jiangs it would be news of his shijie’s son....

Only it might not be that simple. Sweet, determined Jiang Yanli could convince Sect Leader Nie to bend, and Jiang Cheng to _apologize_. Nie Huaisang had seen it with his own eyes!

Jiang Yanli had asked Wei Wuxian to go back to the sword path. And he’d said no.

Which... the more Nie Huaisang thought about that out here on the road, away from sect politics and constant worries about juggling Jin power and lesser sects’ needs and making sure ordinary folk got the night-hunts the Wens had let slip during the war, the less sense it made. Yes, demonic cultivation was powerful, and Wei Wuxian had used that power freely to win the war. But the war was over. And all the years he’d known his friend, Wei Wuxian had _never_ wanted power. His shijie and shidi came first, last, and always.

Wei Wuxian loved Jiang Yanli like a blood brother. He’d tear the world apart for her. He’d torn the Wens apart for her.

Yet he’d told her no. It didn’t make _sense_.

_Jin Ling’s one-month celebration will be coming up soon_ , Nie Huaisang mused. _If anything could pry Wei Wuxian out of the Burial Mounds and make him turn down da-ge’s offer_....

He’d already sent off the _Rescue us!_ message. He’d poured his strength into it, the butterfly would get there at least a week before the celebration, and by then events should be moving too fast for anyone to realize they hadn’t actually _gotten_ to Valdemar when it was sent.

Hopefully. He’d sent his talisman to da-ge, and you’d have to be a cultivating genius to feel out the details of the cultivation on it after it’d been opened.

Which meant, if by some crazy chance Wei Wuxian got his hands on the message directly....

Oh, the timing was going to be so _tight_ on this.

_Not late enough in the day to justify camping outside the walls_ , Nie Huaisang judged, as they rode up toward the town gate. _We’ll have to find an inn. Or as close as they have to one_.

Not that he minded an inn, and hot food, and oh gods the chance for a _bath_. He was a pampered, frivolous, fluttery young master for a reason. Let people see that he could endure a week on the road without falling into a dead faint, and they might start expecting him to be _competent_. 

It was just going to make finding a spot to hide the next anchor talisman... difficult, was all. The arrays he and his brother had planned needed a lot of open space to activate. Inside the walls of a border town there might not be any to spare.

_Wait until we’re a few li farther inside Valdemar_ , Nie Huaisang judged, dismounting with the others to approach the spear-armed and chainmail-armored guards. _It’ll make things simpler_. 

_Nervous_ armed guards, Nie Huaisang saw, watching their attention twitch between the cultivators and the hubbub of the town behind them. Which was odd. If they were worried about monsters from the woods, there was a clear sightline down the road. If they were worried about their human visitors - most people didn’t recognize sect robes as anything other than fancy silk. The Valdemar border guards should think they had the edge in arms and armor. After all, that’s what the last three groups of bandits they’d met had thought.

He had to thank his brother’s forethought for the quality of the self-cleaning talismans in their robes. Blood on ordinary silk was so _messy_.

“Good afternoon!” At least that was what Nie Huaisang hoped he’d said. Their Shin’a’in contacts claimed the general Northern language was known everywhere but Karse and Hardorn, and the three of them had made it through Rethwellan in one piece. “I am Nie Huaisang, of the Nie Sect, with Nie Zonghui and Lan Wangji of the Lan Sect. We have come to Valdemar to visit the Bardic Collegium.”

The elder of the first pair of spearmen came forward, the grizzled gray hair of an ordinary man over the odd-shaped eyes that were _everywhere_ north of the Plains. He glanced at Lan Wangji first, raking his gaze over white robes and the cloud-patterned headband before frowning, and turning to Nie Huaisang. Huh. Rude, or some local custom they didn’t know about?

Though there was supposed to be that order of messengers and traveling justices that worked for the crown in Valdemar, that wore all white. But surely anyone could see their party wasn’t of Valdemar?

“Cas Wainwright, border Guard,” the guard stated, spear at polite rest. “Nie and Lan sects? Haven’t heard of those faiths before. You came up from Rethwellan?”

He sounded surprised. Why? There was a road-

“Just the three of you?”

Oh. Come to think of it, that many bandits probably would have been trouble for ordinary folk. Which was why sect lands had cultivators. And... apparently these lands had ordinary folk wearing half a man’s weight in steel. So odd. Didn’t they know that just one lightning talisman-?

Ah, right. No cultivators, so no talismans. Good thing at least one of his qiankun bags was nothing but proper talisman paper. Wei Wuxian might be able to improvise with any surface that’d stand still long enough, but Nie Huaisang needed proper tools. “If you’re looking for a yellow-haired bandit with a scar there,” Nie Huaisang slashed one finger in front of his right eye, “the Rethwellan Guard said self-defense was fine so long as we flagged the bodies and reported to the nearest proper authorities. Which would be your town’s Guard?”

Guard Cas - no, Guard _Wainwright_ , people here put clan names last-

Well. At least he wasn’t as round-eyed as his younger partner. Though he was giving them a long second look. “Self-defense?”

Nie Huaisang blinked, and fluttered his fan before his face. “It was awful! I was so close to everything, all the blood, I don’t even want to _think_ about it. I’m so lucky Elder Brother said I should travel with martial brother Zonghui and Master Lan along. If I’d been alone-!”

If he’d been alone, it would have been talismans to their faces, jump on Aituan, and take them down by bowshot from the air. He might not be anywhere near the skill of Lan Wangji or Wei Wuxian, but he could certainly hit human-slow targets.

As it was, Lan Wangji had flattened their first rush with a chord from his guqin, Nie Huaisang had thrown two flash talismans to delay the ambush from the other side, and then Nie Zonghui and Lan Wangji had drawn steel and carried out the sober duty of cultivators faced with bandits or evil spirits anywhere. He’d only had to kill one himself; Aituan had _really_ wanted the chance to cut down something undeniably evil before they had to deal with crowds of strangers again. And da-ge would have been disappointed if he hadn’t helped.

“There, there, young master.” Nie Zonghui patted his shoulder, just as he would have a much younger Huaisang who hadn’t even butchered his first chicken yet. “It’s over now.”

Oh, he really did like Zonghui, Nie Huaisang knew, still blinking as fragile and innocent as he could. The Nie Sect might want him to train more with the saber inside their walls, but if he wanted to look like harmless bait to strangers, they’d back him to the hilt. Why waste energy chasing evil when you could lure it right into stabbing range?

Wait. Had Lan Wangji’s lips twitched?

Guard Wainwright’s face almost matched a Lan for stoic. “Bandits are a bad business for everyone.” He inclined his head. “If you’ll follow me, sirs, so you can point out where you were ambushed on our map?”

Oh good, they did seem to be taking it as calmly as the Rethwellan Guards had said they would. Something about the Pelagirs Hills scaring out anyone with a normal set of nerves. Which made no sense. Their road had been perfectly safe, except for the bandits.

Well, the bandits and one or two odd yao. Walking trees were fine, so long as they’d rather just walk away from anyone gathering firewood. The _singing_ trees, though - that grove had taken a few chords from Lan Wangji’s guqin and Nie Zonghui demonstrating how two sabers could make a man-thick trunk into matchsticks before they’d backed down.

_And these people don’t have cultivators_.

They did have good guards, though. Disciplined. Wainwright had called another pair to take his place at the gates before they all passed through scarred wood into the town. Good.

Leading his mare, Nie Huaisang looked about the rough-cobbled streets in pure curiosity. Colors, cuts of clothing, what was out for sale hawked by peddlers - all showed tastes subtly different from Rethwellan, and much more different from the Plains. Lan Wangji and Nie Zonghui could pay attention to the martial details of scarring on the gates, number of defenders, and watchposts on the walls. Da-ge had sent him to be diplomatic, and he was going to learn enough to do his job. Which included _not_ keeping his distance from all the men with hair shorn short as criminals, and getting a sense of the local fashion so he didn’t flinch from the shameless lack of layers while he was trying to compliment some local power.

It wasn’t easy. There was so little cloth, compared to back home. It was almost as if- Wait, no, they wouldn’t have talismans to let one spinner work five wheels, would they? Much less the cultivators to assist the weavers, the dyers, the crop-workers... oh _dear_.

_But they have other things. What did that one Rethwellan merchant call it, Mind-Magic? Some of them can predict the weather months in advance! That could be the difference between a full harvest and a hungry year. And it’d make safer night-hunts. At least, if you were going to be chasing demons through a pounding storm, you’d know soon enough to pull back and set up defensive arrays_.

Nie Huaisang hid a smile behind his fan, already thinking on how he might persuade a weather-witch to move to the Unclean Realm, or at least part with a copy of her cultivation manuals. Or maybe Lotus Pier would be more to one’s liking. Yes, everyone in Yunmeng could swim, so almost no one drowned in sudden floods - but the lotus farmers could use any advance warning they could get. And that would give Yunmeng Jiang an edge in power and prestige over Lanling Jin, which would give Jiang Cheng more leverage to ally with Qinghe Nie, and _that_ would mean less stress on Nie Mingjue trying to curb the Jin from lording it over the rest of the sects. Everyone would win.

_“Three things never anger, or you will not live for long....”_

Nie Huaisang pricked his ears up, curious. This would be his first real chance to check that no, Valdemar _didn’t_ have cultivators. Or at least none ordinary people knew about. The guard was humming in his throat, too low for anyone but himself to hear. Anyone _ordinary_. “What three things?” 

“Wha-? How-?” Guard Wainwright cut himself off, glancing about as if he’d been caught singing aloud. Which, in a way, he had. “Ah, old song that came up the road from Rethwellan. About some very unlucky bandits. Bard Leslac’s passed on by now, o’ course, but the Collegium should still have all his scores.”

Scores? That was a tricky word, but from the context.... “Musical writings?”

“Ah - right. Musical scores.” A chainmailed shrug. “Sorry. Your Valdemaran’s pretty good, and we don’t get a lot of strangers around here.”

Evidently not, if they called the language they shared with Rethwellan _their_ tongue. That was the sort of casual arrogance that led to sects sniping at each other. And then swords swooping at dawn, if no one calmed down the hotheads first.

Zonghui drew a breath just a hair deeper than normal, glancing at the passing townsfolk; laughing and chattering, drinks and sweet-breads being hawked like a villagers’ thanks-feast after a night-hunt. Paying almost no attention to three foreign strangers besides quick glances of, _what on earth kind of robes are those?_ “Is that so.”

Nie Huaisang kept a perfectly straight face, seeing Lan Wangji’s eyes narrow; good as a shout that _he_ didn’t believe the situation either.

“Ah... yes, I s’pose even Rethwellans don’t see this much.” Guard Wainwright grinned, taking a decade off his face. “We’ve got a Companion in on Search! Came in last night, mane full of twigs, didn’t even want to stop for a rub and a night in a warm stall. Our Healer had to give him a talking-to! He had enough sense to listen, at least; let us know he’ll rest today. Looks like he might have to head right over the Border. That doesn’t happen too often. But when it does... well, they always bring back someone _interesting_ , and then we get whole new Bards’ songs!”

At least half that speech made no sense whatsoever. Nie Huaisang frowned behind his fan, trying to pick it apart bit by bit as the guard led them through all the festive noise toward what seemed like some village headman’s residence. Singing, a few pairs dancing, someone had apparently brought out something like a lute, and now there were chimes that... well, to the locals they probably sounded joyous. To anyone who’d been on a Qishan battlefield they sounded altogether too much like a Jiang clarity bell ringing away resentful energy, and- No. Aituan would have _tugged_ at him, if there were ghosts or fierce corpses about. Tugged at him with joy and righteous fury, eager to hunt.

...Well, more accurately, eager to watch while someone else did most of the running around, and then swoop in at the last minute to chop, chop, chop. He wasn’t lazy, he was efficient!

_Sure, A-Sang_ , Mingjue’s voice smirked from memory. _So let’s see if you can_ efficiently _get two hours of saber-forms into one hour of practice, hmm?_

_Drat you, da-ge_.

Anyway. Right now all Aituan felt of was a low grumble of _too many people, too many potential enemies_. “Companion,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “The white horses your Queen’s messengers use?”

“They’re not- Ahem. They’re the Herald’s mounts, aye,” Guard Wainwright nodded. “I s’pose you’ve never seen one....”

A chill shivered down Nie Huaisang’s spine. It might be on a foreign face, but that was the same mix of alarm and restrained glee he saw on fellow Nie when he’d tried to skip practice and his older brother was _standing right behind him_.

And the chiming had stopped.

Expression carefully schooled to calm, Nie Huaisang turned.

_That is not a horse!_

He might not be the strongest cultivator of his generation, but he’d lived through his share of night-hunts. He knew the _feel_ of something that existed as more than physical flesh.

_Horses aren’t white; not unstained white, pure as silk just woven. They don’t have blue eyes. They don’t have silver hooves!_

Zonghui was between him and the threat, fingers a twitch away from grabbing steel. A twitch, because it was the Nie way to destroy evil and preserve good, and neither of them felt a breath of resentful energy from this creature. Yet. And Lan Wangji-

The Second Jade of Lan stepped forward, fearless as he’d been facing down black-wreathed Wei Wuxian on the darkest battlefield. As if this was not, _could not_ be an enemy. Only an ally whose limits they did not yet know. Gold eyes met blue-

The world rang, spiritual energy singing like two guqin in perfect harmony.

“...He says his name is Kellen.”

Head still ringing, Nie Huaisang stumbled a step back, and wondered if anyone would mind too terribly much if he passed out. All he could see was Lan Wangji’s gentle hand patting a white neck, as the plan he and da-ge had carefully worked out went up in flames, smoke rising to frame Lan Xichen’s devastated face.

_Er-ge is going to_ kill _me_....

* * *

Kerowyn, Herald-Captain of Valdemar, Weaponsmaster of Haven, and reluctant soul stuck in charge of coming up with counterstrategies for magic due to being one of the few Heralds who’d ever even _seen_ it, stomped one booted foot and glared at her wall map of the eastern border. To no effect. The splotches of yellow and red and ominous black didn’t change.

: _Forget it, Chosen_.: Sayvil chuckled in her mind. : _If you were ever going to sprout Firestarting, you’d have unleashed it on those demon-bugs moons back. That map’s not going anywhere_.:

Kero sighed, leaning her forehead against paper for a moment of sheer, unguarded frustration. The tiled wall behind it was cool, enough to take the edge off her snarl. The gray hairs in the blonde straying free of her braid brought it right back. Stress, not age. That was pure stress. “We’ve killed every last one of Ancar’s blood-mages our spies can track down, and the areas of tainted land just keep getting bigger.” She grimaced. “It’s not fast, but it doesn’t stop.”

: _Mm. Blood-magic’s nasty that way_ ,: Sayvil agreed, regret coming with a feeling of flicked ears. : _It poisons the natural flow of energy in the earth, worse than battlefields. Put the two together, and things get... interesting_.:

As in spooky haunts, twisting shadows, and now actual _monsters_. The last one Bolton had seen had started out as a horse. Maybe. Hard to tell under eel-slick black skin and all the _fangs_.

Which was why Kerowyn was glaring at the map, instead of just sending a message to Haven’s temples asking them to throw more priests at it. They’d already thrown priests at it; good ones, anyone the Heralds and her Skybolts vouched for as understanding the kind of restless souls war left behind. Father Ricard couldn’t go, they could not lose Valdemar’s Lord Patriarch while their alliance with the Son of the Sun was still new and shaky. But every other priest had sent blessings to the front, and Father Gerichen had traveled out from Haven to say prayers. The people in Bolton swore it had helped. For a while.

: _Prayers do help_ ,: Sayvil sighed, following her train of thought. : _But I’d lay odds some of those souls just_ won’t _seek the Havens until Ancar’s dead and dust_.: A silent huff. : _The problem is, not all the prayers in the world will untangle tainted magic. We need Healing Adepts. And we haven’t got them_.:

“ _Healing_ Adepts.” Kero folded her arms, knowing Sayvil could feel it all the way out in Companions’ Field.

: _It’s a Hawkbrothers’ specialty_.:

Tayledras. Some kind of distant, possibly magic-using relatives, according to her Shin’a’in cousins; beyond that she didn’t know much. Which was _annoying_ , now that Elspeth might be with some of them. “And you didn’t mention that because...?”

: _None of us realized the tainted areas would keep spreading_ ,: her Companion admitted. : _When we knew they were... Tayledras stick to cleansing the Pelagirs. They’re wary of outsiders asking them to use magic for them. Shoot first and ask questions of the corpse wary_.:

Kero blinked, for a moment not seeing the map at all, too caught in that feeling of _certainty_. “Literally?”

: _In very deed, Chosen. I don’t know if it’s magic, or the same Gifts a few of our priests turn up with - but yes. They talk to spirits. And when it comes to intruders, they aren’t shy about_ making _them_.:

How a Valdemar-born Companion knew anything about Hawkbrothers... Kero wasn’t going to ask. Companions were spirits, like the veiled Swordsworn of her grandmothers’ clan. She’d bet, like those spirits, they’d lived mortal lives before.

_Lived, and died, and grieved those they lost to time_ , Kero thought privately. _No, I’m not poking that hornet’s nest. Sayvil trusts me. If she knows something important, she’ll tell me. No matter how it hurts_. “So we can’t drag a Hawkbrother home by the ear. Too bad.” She _hmph_ ed. “Well, we’ll be looking for mages to hire anyway. Would any other schools teach that trick?”

She’d sent word to Quenten and his fellow White Winds mages, asking if any of them knew anything about cleaning up after blood-magic. _She_ certainly didn’t. A mercenary learned about magic used for war, for healing, for illusions, and how a wary fighter might slip free of spells as much as any non-mage could. Generally by killing the mage.

_Did that. Now what?_

Quenten’s letters back could mostly be summed up as, “cordon off the area, let time take care of it.” Which might work when you had _one_ blood-mage that’d killed a few dozen people. Ancar’s had slaughtered whole _armies._

: _It’s a bigger mess than I’ve ever heard of, yes_.: Sayvil nibbled that thought, delicately as she might salad greens offered by Selenay’s twins. : _Sad to say, Chosen, but outside Tayledras? You know more about what different magic is out there than any of us. That steel-brained sword you used to carry, for one. I don’t know any kingdom that makes magic swords anymore. Even that good-for-nothing-else scrap metal lightshow that’s the Rethwellan royal blade_.:

Kero snorted. King Faram was smart enough to know that the Sword That Sings was more trouble than it was worth. All well and good to have a sword that bound your oaths and your heirs if you only made oaths to your own people. Faram’s grandfather Stefansen had left Rethwellan dangling on a dangerous hook when he’d sworn an oath to aid Valdemar. Yes, it had been the right thing to do when Selenay called in that old marker. And it had been the _smart_ thing to do; near half Rethwellan’s trade still went to Valdemar, and if they hadn’t stopped Ancar’s forces in their tracks he’d have slaughtered his way through Rethwellan next.

But what if it hadn’t been right? Lands changed with their rulers. Just look at Karse. Enemies for over a century, burning their own innocent Gifted; now allies trying to make sure the Fires burned only blood-mages. An open-ended oath of aid could bind you to very nasty people down the line.

: _We’d never let that happen here_.:

: _Not as long as any Companion drew breath_ ,: Kero agreed. Silently; she didn’t want this bit overheard. : _But we know Ancar’s summoning Things from other planes. Evil things. If he and his blood-mages bite off more than they can chew - you know my grandmothers’ tales of Thalhkarsh. That demon had enough power to rip through a Swordsworn’s goddess-bond. What could they do to you?_ :

: _Nothing good_ ,: Sayvil admitted. : _As you tell the trainees, anyone can be broken. I’d like to think a Companion would die first. But I’d rather not find out_.:

“What’s prepared for, never occurs,” Kero quoted. Tarma had had plenty of pithy sayings for a granddaughter hell-bent on living by her sword. Most of them along the lines of, _Friendly fire isn’t_. “So how do we prepare for Ancar’s mages dumping demons on us? Just in case.”

: _We should talk to our priests, and do some praying of our own_ ,: Sayvil said frankly. : _It’s a shame no one knows how to forge swords like Need anymore. Stubborn and trouble, she’s all of that - but she was one of the few things that could hurt a demon_.:

“Mm,” Kero nodded, eyes straying down the map south, to the Plains that were part of her birthright. Where she meant to drag everyone still living if Ancar’s forces ever did overwhelm Valdemar. Better to have a plan for desperate times and never need it, than assume the kingdom would never fall.

_They’re probably getting snow about now. Huh. Wonder if the Shin’a’in know how odd their weather is. They’re so much further south, but I’d swear they see winter sooner than Valdemar_.

Winter, and sometimes demons. Tarma had passed along the teaching-song about the Snowbeast that had eaten half a clan and killed two Swordsworn taking it down. Too bad one of _them_ hadn’t had Need.

_No mages on the Plains to summon that thing_ , Kero thought, tracing the bowl of the Plains and the long chain of magic-twisted lands to the west of it. _I wonder where it came from_....

Her finger stopped.

: _Eh?_ : Sayvil peeked through her eyes, looking at a fingertip hovering below Clan lands. : _What’s in Velvar?_ :

“That depends on if you’re talking about here,” Kero tapped the map southeast of the Plains, where Velvar’s capital Ashuel was, then moved her finger west. “Or over _here_.”

There was a sudden burst of silent swearing in her head. : _Sun and Shadow. The Pelagirs go that far south?_ :

“The Mercenary Guild’s not sure.” Kero scowled at the map. “All their representatives who’ve traveled there and lived to come back, say it’s even worse than the Pelagirs. Monsters. Ghosts, if you believe that.” Her voice dropped, dry. “The dead rising from the grave.”

: _Captain Idra_ ,: Sayvil countered.

Heh. Fair. Though Captain Idra’s ghost had needed a spell cast by mage, Swordsworn as priestess, and _five hundred Sunhawks’_ will for vengeance to come back for Rashchar Oathbreaker. But it was possible. “What the Guild knows is that the King of Velvar and every noble with sense pretends _very hard_ that the western wilderness doesn’t exist,” Kero said wryly. “Taxes come out of there; dyes and silk, I think. But sometimes... they’re not all that comes out.”

: _Monsters like that Snowbeast_.:

Sayvil always had been quick. “So they say,” Kero agreed. “And then sometimes... I think the word is _xiuxianzhe..._ come hunting the monsters.”

There was a tickling at her brain, as Sayvil gently poked her memory for anything her Chosen might have overheard once and forgotten in the wake of staying alive. : _Some kind of local mages? With swords?_ :

“Who love good horses, according to my cousins,” Kero agreed, surprised, as a little snippet of gossip from decades back bubbled up. Companion Mindspeech was so _useful_. “And if your Chronicles are right, Herald-Mage Vanyel had no problem putting in the time to learn magic _and_ swords. He just didn’t have a _life_.”

: _Sad, but true_.:

Kero scowled at the map, tracing her finger from Velvar north. “So blasted far away.”

: _Farther than Elspeth’s going_ ,: Sayvil agreed. : _But if anyone outside the Tayledras would know how to deal with magic-hurt land... think the Guild Representative here in Valdemar would mind us picking his brain?_ :

“Hellfires, I’ll pay for a full report.” Kero straightened away from the map. “Cheaper to send gold than a person that far, on what’s probably a wild goose chase. Wouldn’t want to send anyone who can’t take care of themselves against things Pelagirs-crazy, anyway. A couple years ago there was a war going on down there.”

: _Seems to be a lot of that going around_ ,: Sayvil said dryly. : _Well, when it comes to land-healers, even a wild goose to chase is more than we had-_ :

Kero tensed. Sayvil didn’t cut off a thought like that unless something was wrong. And given Ancar’s mages had been hitting Valdemar with evil elementals and assassins....

: _Nothing that fatal. I hope_.: Sayvil’s mindvoice had overtones of ferocious glee, and a hint of a laugh. : _We’re going to need that report fast, Chosen. Selenay’s got an incoming Diplomatic Incident_.:

* * *

“Companion Kellen chose a _what?_ ”

Leafing through the Mercenary Guild’s report as their varied group sat around a table in the private audience room, Queen Selenay nudged her Prince-Consort and beloved husband with a pointy elbow. : _Daren_.:

: _Two words, beloved_. Diplomatic disaster.:

: _It’ll be a headache_ ,: Selenay agreed. : _But at least it’s a different kind of headache_.:

Daren’s sigh told her she’d won that one. But really, who could have lost? Having to argue with the Council yet again that no, Ancar _wasn’t_ going to give up assaulting their border with men and magic just because Princess Elspeth was out of his reach, they could not cut the supplies going east no matter _how_ much a dozen-odd nobles and merchants wanted the budget for other things....

They could both use the break. Even if it came with odd politics attached.

And there weren’t half as many people to deal with for this as there were on the full Council, thank the gods. Kero, of course, with Eldan leaning over her shoulder to read Kero’s own copy of the report. The pair had dealt with enough magic that they could think straight about it, which was not the case with almost everyone else in Valdemar. Herald Teren, representing the Heraldic Circle, who’d have to figure out how to shepherd yet another adult Chosen through what every Trainee was supposed to know. Bard Arissa, lean and elegant in her scarlet silks, at Kero’s request. And Talia as Monarch’s Own, and because there was no one like an Empath to hold the hand of someone likely to be confused, terrified, and - based on what Selenay’d seen when Alberich had been Chosen - likely quite thoroughly _angry_. Chosen children were awed, excited, thrilled at starting a new life. Chosen adults, yanked out of the life they’d thought to have, could be... a bit cranky.

: _I couldn’t blame Lan Wangji if he is, Chosen_ ,: Caryo admitted in her mind. : _Rethwellan’s just across the Border if Kerowyn wants to see her relatives. Alberich - well, he could visit Karse now, if he wanted. But we’re such a long, long way from Velvar_.:

Lan Wangji. Their new Chosen, and- Selenay squinted at odd inked lines, and had to shake her head. They didn’t look like any letters she’d ever seen. She tried to sound out the legible scrawl under it. “How do you pronounce _xiuxianzhe?_ ”

“No idea.” Kero smirked. Just a little. “But we’re probably doing it wrong. According to the Guild, the sects’ language has enough music in it they don’t dare send in anyone tone-deaf. I’m told it means ‘immortal cultivator’.”

“A musical language.” Bard Arissa cast a considering glance over the reports. “I want a copy, when you can turn one loose to the scribes... is that why I’m here?”

“That,” Kero agreed, “and according to the Border Guards’ report, they came to visit your Collegium in the first place.”

Selenay started at that. “They came looking for Bards? Why?”

“Good question.” Arissa crossed scarlet-clad arms. “We can’t have insulted them. None of mine have ever gone that far south.”

: _That they admit to_ ,: Caryo snarked, for Selenay alone. : _But I don’t think we did, no. Kellen says his Chosen has a_ guqin. _Sort of a zither? And he’s very good with it_.:

Arissa might not be Gifted with Mindspeech, but she could read an audience. “He’s a Bard himself?”

“A musician, at least.” Selenay raised an eyebrow at her Herald-Captain. “An _immortal_ musician?”

“The Guild says no. Cultivators are just very hard to kill,” Kero shrugged. “And they come in sects, so take down one and you have a few hundred of them out for your blood. Bad idea.”

“Sects?” Teren frowned, hands twitching as if he’d snatch Kero’s report. “Shouldn’t we have Father Ricard in here?”

Kero shook her head. “Apparently their word is _zong_ , and it doesn’t translate well. What we call sects, actual religion, is closer to what they call _jiao_. Cultivator sects seem more like mage-schools than anything gods-touched. More philosophy. How you use your magic, why, and when you absolutely _don’t_.”

Seated on Selenay’s other side, Talia sighed. “So he has strong beliefs, but not our beliefs. And now he’s ours.” She smiled, fond as the mother she was. “He must be so confused.”

“ _And_ he’s been through a war that sounds as bad as ours with Ancar,” Kero added. “I think he needs your kind of help. For the trauma, likely, and... well, I knew what a Herald was when Sayvil picked me off a battlefield. These three came into Valdemar thinking we were just the Queen’s messengers.”

Selenay was not going to laugh. Heralds were messengers. Among many, many other things. It’d been hard enough for Talia to adjust, and she’d been born in Valdemar. Holderkin, but still Valdemar. “What else do we know about this... wild land in west Velvar?”

“Not as much as the Guild knew about Valdemar before you lot invited my Skybolts up here,” Kero flipped through _maybe_ four pages, to find what she was after, “and that’s saying something.”

“To make a long tale short,” Eldan frowned at the text, “the sects claim they’ve been there since before the Cataclysm. They say it’s the Velvarans who are foreigners.”

Selenay blinked, wracking her brain for what scraps of history Valdemar had saved from before the Founding. “But that would be over three thousand years!” _And we haven’t heard_ anything _about them?_

: _The Hawkbrothers were in the Pelagirs before Baron Valdemar ever got here, and we barely know anything about them_ ,: Caryo shrugged.

Fair enough. Though Selenay thought she understood Elspeth’s recent carefully controlled _temper_ much better now. Legends were supposed to stay safely in the history books, not ride across Valdemar’s border in a whirl of magics and sudden diplomatic incidents.

“Three thousand years of history,” Daren mused. “Are they traditionalists, then?”

“I wish we knew,” Kero sighed. “Velvar hires Guild mercenaries. The sect lands don’t. What we know - know _for certain_ \- boils down to only a few facts.” She held up one finger. “They’re not exactly nobles. Villages and cities run themselves. But every settlement pays a cultivation tax to the sect of their territory. Then when something spooky shows up, they’ve got the right to yell for help.”

Selenay frowned.

Kero raised a brow at her. “Taxes pay for Heralds too, your Majesty. Hellfires, _White Winds_ mages charge to handle magical problems. The Guild swears the monsters are real, and cultivators can and _do_ die taking them down.”

“Mages charge for-?” Teren cut himself off, with a distance in his eyes that said he was Mindspeaking his Wythra. “I suppose it’s odd, thinking of mages as...well, like skilled Healers. Or artisans. It’s _magic_.”

“Get used to it,” Kero advised. “Mages are like Healers. Their Gift takes years to train, it costs them to use it, and they can’t do the impossible.” She cleared her throat. “I grant, with magic, there’s a lot less that’s impossible. But they’re people like the rest of us.” She lifted a second finger. “Which brings us to the second fact. About four or five years ago, the sect lands went to war.”

“With who?” Arissa leaned forward, evidently sensing a mine of material for new songs.

“With each other, the Guild thinks.” Eldan flipped two more pages. “The bit on the Wen Sect.”

Selenay turned to that page, skimming what the Guild had pieced together. “So they think about a century ago, this Wen Ruohan....” No, that couldn’t be right. “They’ve had one Chief Cultivator for almost a _hundred years?_ ”

“Exaggerated. Probably. But strong mages can last a long time,” Kero said flatly. “My grandmother lived to be over a hundred. My Uncle Jadus is well past eighty and hasn’t slowed down.” She shrugged. “Apparently rumors about the Wen Sect have been roiling for decades. Power chasing more power. Death, cruelty, homes and people set on fire, the usual. Except.” She raked everyone else with a sober look. “Tales of _armies of the walking dead_.”

Beside Selenay, Daren shivered. She covered his hand with her own. Her husband still had nightmares of fighting mage-controlled men. Of the face of a farmer who could no longer remember his own name, saluting the prince who’d freed him before he marched into the fray to kill and die.

“Tales,” Kero repeated, more gently. “We don’t know how much of them might be true. But if the Guild’s had time to get those rumors here, I have to wonder if stories of what Ancar did got down _there_. It has been seven years... and according to the Guild, cultivators hunt _their_ blood-mages as quick as they do monsters.”

“A Chosen who knows about blood-mages.” Teren straightened. “Who knows how to fight them.”

“Who might have come up here looking for them,” Kero warned. “Whatever their plans are now, I’d bet they traveled this far looking for more than just Bards.”

_But whatever their plans were, they know they need to alter them_ , Selenay filled in silently. _One of their own being Chosen changes things. It’d have been simpler if they all were, but_....

Mulling that, she glanced at Kero’s still-outstretched fingers. “What else?”

Kero grinned a little, folding her fingers back in. “The Guild thinks whatever went down, the Wen Sect lost.”

“Thinks?” Arissa pounced.

“Each sect has their own symbol on the tribute that comes in to Ashuel,” the former mercenary answered. “And the Wen’s sun hasn’t shown up for two years.”

“Power vacuum,” Selenay murmured. “We’ll need to treat them with care. Long months on the road, and before that - it can’t be calm down there.”

Kero leaned back in her chair, and gave her a long look. Then, considering, turned that same regard on Talia.

“Rolan’s been BeSpeaking Kellen since we found out he’d Chosen,” the Monarch’s Own admitted. “Kellen won’t tell us personal details about Lan Wangji, not until he’s here and can judge us for himself. But you’re right. He _needs_ a MindHealer. At least someone who’ll listen.” She hesitated. “People he trusted did... horrible things. I know that happens in war, but - something about what Rolan shows me feels like more than that.” 

Kero nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t coddle him too much. If he is fresh out of a civil war, he’ll be twitchy.” She took a breath. “That’s pretty much all the solid bits in the report. The rest... guesswork, some odd clerk’s theories about their history, who knows if any of it’s any good.”

“Though the scribbles are funny,” Eldan mused.

Selenay traded a glance with Talia, who made tiny grabby motions toward her report. Evidently raising her own child had rubbed off. “Scribbles?”

“Heh.” Kero flipped to the back. “A few little things about the major sects. Looks like the representative threw them in just because.” She eyed dark near-smudges. “Don’t serve Lans meat. Nie barbeque is to die for; sometimes literally, _giant pigs_. Jins put gold on everything. Wens - stay the hells away from the Nightless City, or you might live to regret it. And....” She wrinkled her nose. “Never insult Jiang soup?”

**Author's Note:**

> “路遙知馬力, 日久見人心” (“lù yáo zhī mǎ lì, rì jiǔ jiàn rén xīn”); “as a long road tests the strength of a horse, so time reveals a person’s heart.”
> 
> Zalmon is a canon Valdemar border town in the Pelagirs between Valdemar and Rethwellan. 
> 
> Hawk Clan - Tale’sedrin (Children of the Hawk). Herald Kerowyn is a member of that clan, hence why she and Valdemar have good contacts all the way down in the Dhorisha Plains. 
> 
> For the purposes of this fic, I’m putting the lands of the Five Sects in the wilder areas of the kingdom of Velvar. Canon we don’t know much about it, besides that it’s got part of the magic-torn Pelagirs in it and that it borders the rim of the Plains. I’m saying the sects in particular live in an area so magically messed up that yes, dead bodies do rise on their own, just like Mo Dao Zhu Shi canon. Since the sects need good horses, especially in the wake of the Sunshot Campaign, I see them as trading with the local Shin’a’in clans despite the clans’ views on “we don’t need magic”. Horse-nomads can still use nice things like silk, lotus seeds, spices, and so on. 
> 
> MDZS timeline note: Yep, I’m avoiding the mess at Qiongqi Path. Just barely. Apparently Jin Ling’s canon birthday is Nov. 21, but the anime and Untamed portrayals of the ambush sure don’t look like late fall, so... moving it back a little so poor Nie Huaisang isn’t trying to get through the Pelagirs near winter! 
> 
> Valdemar timeline note: This is set during the Mage Winds trilogy, while Elspeth is off learning magic from the Hawkbrothers. She and the cultivators’ party would have missed each other probably somewhere near the Dhorisha Plains.
> 
> ...It’s canon Bard Leslac got marriage-trapped in Valdemar a few decades before this mess. “Threes” would be in the nation’s repertoire!
> 
> Kero’s grandmother, the sorceress Kethry, lived to be over a hundred. So cultivators being at least that long-lived fits. 
> 
> Yes, some kind of garbled rumors of the Soup Incident reached the Guild. There were tears.


End file.
